A historical source encompasses "every kind of evidence that human beings have left of their past activities — the written word and spoken word, the shape of the landscape and the material artefact, the fine arts as well as photography and film."[1]
While the range of potential historical sources has expanded to include many non-documentary sources, nevertheless "the study of history has nearly always been based squarely on what the historian can read in documents or hear from informants".[2]
Historical sources are usually divided into primary and secondary, though some historians also refer to tertiary sources.